MacHale Park Seating Plan

MacHale Park Seating Plan

Here’s the MacHale Park seating plan for Castlebar, such as it is. For anyone familiar with Croke Park seating plan, MacHale Park’s stand is somewhat similar. Most match’s held in MacHale park is unreserved seating. On big match days, for example Connacht final, seats in the stand are allocated. Section 101 is nearest the turnstiles at the Sportlann end. Section 109 is at the furthest end of the stand, beside the Albany end. Seating rows A begin from the front up to U which is at the walkway which runs along the length of the middle of the stand. Rows in the upper half of the stand begin at W and continue to Z. Rows AA to VV continue right up to the back of the stand.

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History

The first development of MacHale park began in early 1931 for a princely sum at the time of £1,700, 5 years before Mayo were to win their 1st All Ireland. The official opening of MacHale park took place on the 24th of May 1931. On that day nearly 5,000 spectators lined the terrace’s to watch Mayo and Kildare play on the newly layed pitch. The next major redevelopment of MacHale Park took place between 1950 and 1952. This new redevelopment raised the capacity of MacHale Park to 40,000 spectators. This included seating for 18,000 spectators at a total cost of nearly £15,000.

In the 80’s, MacHale Park was upgraded again with the construction of a stand which was called the “Gerry Mc Donald” stand. Further developments at MacHale continued by Castlebar Mitchells with the construction of new dug outs, wheelchair access, press facilities and seated spectator capacity increased to 32,000. In 2005 the Mayo County Board signed a 50 year lease for MacHale Park and set in motion plans for a major redevelopment of MacHale Park, such as we know it today.

In 2007, planning permission was granted by Mayo Co Co  for the new development. In 2008 construction began on the project which included the construction of a new 10,000 seated stand, much improved spectator facilities, meeting rooms/offices, and an underground player training facilities. There was also a media tower constructed on the MacHale road side of the ground which includes TV studios and radio & press facilities. In 2010 full pitch lighting was installed but ran into some planning problems. MacHale Park is now a 42,000 all seater stadium, the largest all seater stadium outside of Croke Park! MacHale Park is now known as “Elvery’s MacHale Park” with Elvery’s being the main sponsors of Mayo GAA securing the naming rights in October 2011.